Pages

Jan 31, 2016

I was on the busier side this week, but lucky for me there's such a thing as short films. I've been very slowly working my way through all the Best Animated Short winners of every year and I've finally worked my way up to 1966. Once I'm done that, I think I'll tackle every nominee for the category which will no doubt take even longer. No complaints here. Without further ado, let's get into WIWTW.

But first...

Some News (That I Actually Care About)

Even if I haven't seen Beast of No Nation, I'm of the opinion that Idris Elba was mostly like snubbed for this year's Oscars. His win at the SAG Awards just cements that. @Entertainment Weekly

Box office report: Kung Fu Panada3 suffered a bit from franchise fatigue, but not to a very great extent. $41 million ain't no chump change, although it is less than the $47.7 million from Kung Fu Panda 2 and the very impressive $60.2 million opening of the original. At #2, The Revenant continued its run towards likely Oscar glory with $12.4 million. It now stands at $138.2 million domestically. Disappointment of the week? That would be Disney's The Finest Hours which scrounged up a disappointing $10.3 million.

So when is Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming out on Blu-Ray? Mark your calendars: April 5th 2016. I'll be waiting for the trilogy boxset in a couple of years myself. @Comicbook.com

Scratch everything I've said before regarding Alien: Covenant because it turns out that Noomi Rapace will NOT be reprising her role from Prometheus. The writing was on the wall I guess with the casting of Katherine Waterston. @Yahoo!

This isn't the first time we've seen Netflix cutting deals with filmmakers to get the movies they want into their catalog, but this is certainly the priciest of all of them. They've just paid $60 million for studio Plan B's adaptation of The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan which will star Brad Pitt. @The Hollywood Reporter

For those who are interested, here's the list of the full winners at the SAG Awards: @Eonline

Video of the week: The Undisputed series has to be one of the best in B-movie action flicks. Here's the trailer for the newest entry: Boyka: Undisputed IV

Jan 24, 2016

I'm going to be trying out a new format for my WIWTWs since more and more I've been feeling a bit limited with just listing what's good and what's bad about every movie that I watch. Hopefully my musing on each film will have a bit more meat. So let's get to that.

But first...

Some News (That I Actually Care About)

A lack of diversity is all people really seem to be talking about when it comes to the Oscars this season. Here's what Danny DeVito has to say. @Huffington Post

Box office report: No one can really say how much #Blizzard2016 really affected the box office, but no doubt there was an effect. The Revenant came out on top with a mere $16 million, followed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens which still has a bit of life at $14.3 million. Ride Along 2 probably felt the bite of the wintery conditions the most with a steep decline from its opening weekend, managing only $13 million.

And here's what Alejandro González Iñárritu has to say about the lack of diversity which to him is a development/production issue. This is the TRUE issue if you ask me. @The Hollywood Reporter

With this years nominees at the Oscars for Best Visual Effects, there's a real tendency in skipping computer generated CGI and going with more old school practical effects whenever possible. Hope it catches on. @The New Yorker

Yeah, doesn't look like people are too impressed with Swiss Army Man starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse. @Variety

Jan 17, 2016

Just a quick word on my experience with Star Wars: The Force Awakens which I saw at long last: first of all, it is not perfect. Besides the minor issues I do have with it, I still think that it is a superb return to that galaxy far, far away. I won't even deny that I got choked up more than once. The Force Awakens is probably the best example of fan service done right. If the rest of the movies that Disney will be pushing out in the years to come can be around this level in terms of quality, I think we can consider ourselves lucky. So let's move on to WIWTW.

But first...

Some News (That I Actually Care About)

Alan Rickman leaves behind an unmatched legacy of charismatic and memorable roles. From what I understand, he was also a great man off the screen and he will be sorely missed. His final two films that have yet to be released are Eye in the Sky (a military thriller) and fantasy film Alice Through the Looking Glass where he reprises his role as the voice of the Caterpillar. @Space

Box office report: The reign of Star Wars: The Force Awakens has come to an end after four weeks. The new king of the box office is officially Ride Along 2 with Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, returning to reprise their roles of the original buddy cop movie. While it's $34 million opening is less than the original's $41.5 million, it's still a pretty good number. The #2 spot with $29.5 million was taken once again by The Revenant which will most likely continue its strong run after netting 12 nominations at the Oscars. Star Wars: The Force Awakens hung onto the third spot with $25.1 million. Nobody's crying over at Disney though with $851 domestic and $1.86 billion globally. Pretty fair to say that the international gross of Avatar is out of reach, as is Titanic's mostly likely.

Veteran actor Robert Duvall believes that the current generation of young actors are better than ever. @Huffington Post

Christian Bale has not been one to shy away from either gaining or losing extreme amounts of weight for movies roles, but it would appear that what was required for Michael Mann's "Enzo Ferrari" movie was too much for him. @Variety

Jan 10, 2016

The words of this week were Star Wars. That's been the case for the last couple of weeks in reality, but I'm referring to the fact that I watched the entire series over the course of the week. It's been a while since I did a watch-through of the series so it was good to get that out of the way before I go see The Force Awakens in theatres. That's right, I still haven't seen it. That will soon be rectified.

But first...

Some News (That I Actually Care About)

El Chapo biopic incoming? Certainly looks that way with it being reported that Sean Penn met with the Mexican drug lord for a seven hour interview right before his most recent arrest. @BBC

Box office report: Yes yes, Star Wars: The Force Awakens continued its winning streak. With a $41.6 million weekend, it's been #1 for four weeks in a row now and has become the first movie to gross $800 million domestically. The real news though is how well Alejandro G. Inarritu's The Revenant performed. Locked in battle all weekend with Star Wars, it exceeded expectations with a hearty $38 million. The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy's Home took the #3 spot with $15 million and has done quite well with $116.3 million overall. The disappointment of the week would definitely be Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight which dropped 60% from last week to a lowly $6.4 million despite adding several hundred screens.

So what was John Boyega doing before starring in Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Isn't it obvious? He was a stock photo model of course. @Daily News

Rejoice horror fans, upcoming horror film The Witch which has built up a considerable amount of hype has just had its release date moved up by a week. @IndieWIRE

Composer Hans Zimmer will continue his ongoing film score bromance with Christopher Nolan and his upcoming film Dunkirk. @IndieWIRE

Video of the week: Here's the trailer for Matthew McConaughey's next movie, Free State of Jones.

Jan 3, 2016

Some News (That I Actually Care About)

So, Christoph Waltz is pretty eager to be in more James Bond movies. it seems. He's apparently signed on for two more movies with the condition that Daniel Craig returns. @Mirror

Box office report: Star Wars: The Force Awakens continued its ascent to the top, passing Jurassic World and Titanic in its quest for the box office crown. It's currently sitting at $740.4 million domestically. The top dog? That would be Avatar with $760.5 million which is well within reach. The real challenge will be to best the $2.8 billion that Avatar earned globally. Besides Star Wars, Daddy's Home earned a strong $29 million in its second week and The Hateful Eight made $16.2 million in its first week of wide release which isn't quite as good as Tarantino's past movies. For comparison's sake, Django Unchained managed $30.1 million and Inglorious Basterds made $38 million.

I'll tell you, I didn't think that the first XXX was much of a movie. The sequel with Ice Cube? The less that's said, the better. But XXX: The Return of Xander Cage is shaping up to be pretty interesting with Vin Diesel returning and Jet Li as well as Tony Jaa joining him. @CinemaBlend

Here's an ironic one: funding for The Wolf of Wall Street is part of a current investigation into corruption in Malaysia. @Wall Street Journal

Disney CEO Bob Iger has officially stated that there will be another Indiana Jones movie. Done right, I have no doubts that a 73-year old Harrison Ford could handle Indy duty. @ABC News

Video of the week: You'd think that it's a joke, but I assure you, Tiptoes is not.

Jan 1, 2016

It's been a good year movie-wise for me, but who am I kidding? It always is. Among the many bad movies and big disappointments that I've had to endure over 2015, there have been tons of excellent films that make watching movies totally worth it. While most people would (and probably should) tell me to cut out all the crap that I watch and just focus on the best of the best, I say no to that.